e will need the
humble narratives of inconspicuous participants as well as the
pretentious attempts of the partial historians who have preceded him.
The river flows into the sea, but the river itself is supplied by creeks
and rivulets and springs.

W. F. D.

REMINISCENCES OF A REBEL

CHAPTER I

"Lay down the axe; fling by the spade;
Leave in its track the toiling plow;
The rifle and the bayonet-blade
For arms like yours were fitter now;
And let the hands that ply the pen
Quit the light task, and learn to wield
The horseman's crooked brand, and rein
The charger on the battle field."
--BRYANT.

In the fall of the year 1860, when I was in my nineteenth year, I
boarded the steamboat _Virginia_,--the only one then running on the
Rappahannock river,--and went to Fredericksburg on my way to the
University of Virginia. It was my expectation to spend two sessions in
the classes of the professors of law, John B. Minor and James P.
Holcombe, and then, having been graduated, to follow that profession in
Lancaster, my native county.

The political sky had assumed a threatening aspect. The minds of the
Southern people had been inflamed by the insurrectionary raid of John
Brown upon Harper's Ferry, especially because it had been approved by
some Northern officials, and because the surrender of some fugitives
from justice, who had taken part in that murderous adventure, had been
refused by Ohio and Iowa. The election of Abraham Lincoln added fuel to
the flame. Having been nominated by the Republican party, he was
constitutionally chosen President of the United States, although he had
not received a majority of the popular vote. The election was ominous,
because it was sectional, Mr. Lincoln having carried all the Northern
states but not one of the Southern. The intensest excitement prevailed,
while passion blew the gale and held the rudder too.

While I believed in the right of secession I deprecated the exercise of
that right, because I loved the Union and the flag under which my
ancestors had enjoyed the blessings of civil and religious liberty. I
did not think that Lincoln's election was a sufficient cause for
dissolving the Union, for he had announced no evil designs concerning
Southern institutions; and, even if he had, he was powerless to put them
into ex